Business Dan Moran column: The three steps to career (and life) success

unrelenting pursuit of your goal -- a commitment to excellence -- that will enable you to attain the success you seek." Mario Andretti

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Over the past 25-plus years, I have learned one very important thing:

Change is a process -- a sequential process -- and you cannot leapfrog one step or you fail or enjoy a miserable journey.

Most people in the midst of a career change try to cut corners. They jump over the basics ... and they find themselves caught in a fog: a feeling of not knowing where to go.

Change in career and life is just one of those life situations that requires time, dedication and patience. I have coached my clients to look at the process as Three-Steps:

o Accept

o Commit

o Permit: Give yourself permission.

Acceptance

Failure to accept that something, someone or a situation is broken will stop one dead in their tracks. Acceptance is key to success. Failure to accept is a fate of failure.

So today, formally accept that you are ready to change, are willing to accept something new and are able to handle the ups and downs of doing so. Say it over and over. Own it.

Commitment

The key to success in life and career is going out on the limb. A definition of commitment is putting your words and actions into play, putting your butt on the line and taking a critical step forward toward the success you desire.

Commitment is absolutely essential to move forward and it is the step in the process that, sadly, most fail because it may involve making sacrifices for the long-term.

It is also much easier to do nothing -- to be lazy -- rather than commit. Laziness is the failure of a person to manage the time and resources they have been provided. Because no action is required in the sin of laziness, it is one of the easiest to commit.

Maybe you have been there -- being lazy -- but there has been a defining moment to cause you to start this path of change. You have experienced an awakening of sorts; you just now need to keep it moving forward -- commitment.

Permit: Give Yourself Permission

I want you to visualize with me for a moment. Picture a person walking up a steep hill.

... Now, picture that person with a 50-pound boulder stuck on their butt that won't come off. Yup, hanging there on their backside. Think they are ascending easily? No way.

When one does not give himself or herself permission to achieve and change, they have commitment, but cannot move. Until the boulder is removed, they stall.

Most people are brought up in life with a golden rule: Do good for others. We are not taught to do good for ourselves, without guilt. So we go through life doing all for others, but not for ourselves.

Not until a defining moment happens does one begin to think and say, "This is OK. I have done for others throughout my life and it is right and good to do for myself now."

Accepting that statement is powerful and a game changer.

So, stop asking yourself "Should I?" -- Do it and do it now. Accept your situation, commit to change and give yourself permission to be all you want to be.